World News | Pakistan's New Security Policy Prioritises Economic Projects

Islamabad, Dec 6 (PTI) Pakistan in its new National Security Policy aims to give top priority to economic projects, placing it at the center of all discourse, amidst recent concerns from Beijing regarding the safety of Chinese workers building the ambitious bilateral trade corridor.

The Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) met under the Chairmanship of Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser in Parliament House on Monday for a briefing on the new National Security Policy.

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Explaining the initial plans, National Security Adviser (NSA) Moeed Yusuf said the National Security Policy is “designed to leverage the symbiotic relationship between human security, economic security and military security with the prosperity and safety of citizens as its principal focus”.

He further informed that it “endeavours to put economic security at the core of policy priorities to expand the national resource pie for greater investments in human and military security”.

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He said that the National Security Policy would be the first ever document that outlines the challenges and opportunities facing Pakistan in the coming years, while providing policy guidelines for mitigation and actualising opportunities through a whole-of-government approach.

The NSA informed the Committee that the process of consultations with stakeholders for the formulation of the National Security Policy was initiated in 2014 after the establishment of the National Security Division.

In 2018, a Drafting Committee was established which built on earlier work.

Several rounds of feedback consultations on multiple drafts were held with all state institutions, including the provincial governments, followed by consultations with over 600 academics, analysts, civil-society members and students across Pakistan to make the policy process inclusive.

The NSA informed that the policy is expected to be a dynamic document which will be reviewed each year and on the transition of government to help keep the National Security Policy abreast with policy priorities in a fast changing global environment.

Speaker National Assembly Qaiser said that the formulation of a comprehensive National Security Policy by the incumbent government reflected its priority for realising the dream of a secure and prosperous country.

The meeting was attended by Federal Ministers, Leader of the House in Senate, Members of the National Assembly and Senate, Senior Officers of the National Security, Defence, Foreign Affairs and Interior Divisions.

The Opposition parties boycotted the briefing, citing that they were not taken on board about the agenda of the meeting.

The development comes as terrorists have targeted infrastructure projects, especially in the restive Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.

In August, a suicide bomber attacked a motorcade carrying Chinese personnel on the Gwadar East Bay Expressway project in which one Chinese was injured and two local children were killed.

The Chinese embassy after the incident asked the Pakistan government to beef up security for the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects and the hundreds of Chinese personnel working on them.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)